If you would like to see the official Brillion Nature Center site, and you don't want your computer to crash or have yourself fall asleep waiting for the website to load, please read the following before clicking on the new link.

Calumet County, Wisconsin is a RURAL area, full of dairy cows and alfalfa fields. Many people do NOT have access to DSL or cable internet connections. Many are on SLOW dial-up connections, much like myself.

There are several Nature Centers in Northeast Wisconsin. I reviewed their webpages and came up with the following data.

Gordon Bubolz Nature Preserve has a nice website. The front page only takes 69K to load and their events page is 18K in size. My only suggestion is that they pay $15/yr and get a domain name. I give this website an A-.

Woodland Dunes Nature Center also has a nice website. The front page only takes 102K to load and their events page is 32K in size. I give this website an A+.

Heckrodt Wetland Reserve has a nice front page. It only takes 99k to load. I have problems with their event page. It's a 307k PDF file which is quite large and will not load on older computers. All the same events could be listed in a 30K webpage. I give this website a B-.

1000 Islands Environmental Center needs work. The front page is 79K in size and that's good. The events page is 15K in size, but... its very out of date and contains 2004 events only. Also, the website should get a domain name. I give it a C-.

Ledge View Nature Center needs MAJOR work. They have moved their page, but haven't had many of the links to their site changed. You will first go to a 109k page which doesn't even give you a direct link to their new page. You have to hunt and peck thru the county website to find the new page. It's big... and takes 237k to load. Their events are in a big 352k pdf file. Apparently the PDF file is just a POOR quality flatbed scan and is barely readable. The events listed could be on a 2K webpage. This website get a D+.

Let's review the new Brillion Nature Site. It's front page is a HUGE 876K in size. It's so big that I would click on it during a commercial of 'COPS' and when I came back at the next commercial, it was still loading. The site is so rude that it won't even give you the menu until the very end of loading. It forces you to watch a slide show of pictures before giving you something to click on. If you try hitting 'stop' on the explorer bar, it stops momentarily and then starts up again. You can only stop it by closing the window. The webmaster's attitude is "It's not our fault if you have a dial up modem".

It takes 27k to load ONE event. The scariest thing was when I click on the by-laws link, my computer locked up and I had to re-boot. I had lost a document I was working on in another window. I was NOT a happy camper.

If you type in the website address without the www in the front, it takes you to a computer consulting site.... strange... Websites should work with or without the WWW in the front. I give this website a F.

If you like to grow cobwebs while waiting for a webpage to load AND don't mind if your computer locks up, then copy and paste in this address: www . brillion nature center . net, remove the spaces in the address and view the website. Make sure to put in the WWW or else you get some other site.

Note: The old Brillion Nature Center website had a front page of 89k and the links were immediately available. The events page was 71k in size and the text immediately loaded. To my knowledge it never locked up anyone's computer and never had any complaints about the webpages loading.

Comments? Changes? Updates? Please Email webmaster@brillionnaturecenter.org Thanks!